Assess The Role Of Advocacy In Nursing

From the very beginning, advocacy has been the prominent role of nurses. The nursing profession’s unique nature of combining art, science, and ethics make it adapted to the changing health care system in a society. In fact, various influential pioneer nurses worked under worse conditions - limited resources, health access, challenging roles – and proved that positive outcomes can be achieved regardless. Although the autonomy of the nursing practice was interrupted since World War II, the current health care system, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), opened another opportunity for nurses to assert leadership in ensuring a safe, quality, and cost-effective patient care. Thus, to become better patient advocates, today’s nurses must be abreast

on their current roles, health trends, ACA impacts, and visions of nursing in the future.
Patient Advocates
Since nurses comprise the majority of the healthcare workforce, Nickitas, Middaugh, and Aries (2016) affirmed that nurses have the capability of delivering a safe, high quality, cost-effective patient care. With the ACA mandates, Kunic and Jackson (2013) enumerated ways nurses have already made the difference: improving healthcare access to deprived areas, promoting palliative care delivery, coordinating and managing care of chronic diseases, reducing hospitalization costs, enhancing care delivery through health technology, and providing primary care as advanced practitioners. As nurses’ role continues to evolve, a nurse must be able to assert his/her position, extent of advocacy, the impacts of policy changes, and the future task of nursing.
A Nurse’s Position
As the frontline caregivers, nurses play an important role in providing holistic care to patients while in the hospital. Implementing evidence-based measures, nurses can advocate for the latest intervention, utilize resources and current technology for a fast recovery. With the focus on wellness promotion and injury prevention, the nurse can actively involve the patient and family in the management of care during and after hospitalization. While nurses face heavy workloads, Nickitas et al. (2016) urged nurses to voice out concerns and promote a policy for a healthy working environment to ensure safe practices are upheld.